Greyriver Shifters

by Kristina Weaver

  “Nothing,” Bear says, shaking his head. “The closest neighbor is less than a mile out, but they were having a family get-together now that the attacks have stopped and people are feeling safer. All we have is the underlying scent—and this. No sound, no trail that we can follow. Just this.”

  We look at the room he’s indicating, and once again, I find it strange that Barbie would not scent of fear or anger if someone had come in here and done this to her place.

  “We should put out a pack-wide message and call the Kendalls. Gile won’t like this. In fact, I think that sonofabitch may start going on a rampage. Barbie is their only young, and this is going to kill his mate.”

  I agree with Nick, but I don’t think anyone should talk to the family about this just yet. Don’t ask me why, but I just know that having the town on alert again and one male rampaging and out of his mind is what those bastards want.

  With the pack relaxed and unstressed, it is safer and easier for us to keep order and walk the boundary lines. Things were so unsettled a few weeks ago that I was running after shifted males, who decided to go vigilante and search these invaders out.

  That took up half of my time, running them down and convincing them to shift back and go home. Hell, I caught my own Alpha stalking the woods in wolf form, ready to attack anything that came anywhere near our boundary lines and onto our lands.

  I’ve caught females too, one of them Barbie herself, the little cougar the hardest one to track because she’s small, blends in well, and has an advantage when she is in the trees and looking down at the woods.

  Through all of this shit, the one thing I still don’t know—and what could give us all the answers possibly, is why Jules? After the first time Nick moved her, the female took it into her head that she needed to leave and gave her guards the slip, disappearing into the world without a trace.

  She’s just gone. Her last message let Nick and Prissy know that she has a safe place to go to and a friend who is keeping her hidden and that she’s going to get her own answers before too long.

  The clock is ticking for us now. We can’t leave Jules out there alone with no protection, and yet, we can’t leave our people unprotected either—as tonight has proven.

  “What we should do is keep this quiet and not rouse more problems for the force. Wait Alpha, please just hear me out. Once Gile and Carline know, the whole pack will be on alert again and tense. The council is already making noises about replacing you as Alpha, and while I know Bear is ready for whatever you throw at him, he doesn’t want to have to rule knowing the pack got rid of his father and mother. Things are testy right now, too testy to expect that you’ll keep things together if the council gains enough support to boot you,” I point out, getting a snarl of pure rage for my words.

  “Those fuckers are getting on my last Goddamned nerve. Haven’t I always led the people with everything I have in me?” he says and growls, pacing to the windows to look out at the black night sky.

  “Yeah Dad, you have, and everyone in this pack knows you’re the best Alpha we’ve had in centuries. Grandfather was a good male, but he refused to rethink the old ways that kept us pinned in the dark ages. You’re our Alpha, our leader, our strength, but right now, tensions are just simmering under the surface. Logan is right. If they know Barbie’s been taken, everything goes to shit for us before we can figure things out and get her back. What we need is time, and for you to keep these people under control,” Bear says, throwing me a look.

  I know that look because I must have worn the same just a minute ago. Tread lightly with Alpha, Dad or not, or you’re likely to end up in the cells for a good twelve months to reconsider your attitude.

  “Fuck! I need this shit right now like I needed that sister of yours to get fool ideas in her head. Goddammit, I need time to find my kid, not play pack politics and wipe hairy asses.”

  Bear grins, giving me a look filled with amusement, and I shake my own head, disagreeing with his silent message. Alpha is still in control, and he can still kick our collective asses with one hand tied behind his back.

  “Then keep this shit quiet and focus on searching for Jules—quietly—while Banner, Bear, and I start searching for Barbie.”

  “Where? Where do you start looking? There’s fuck all here, Logan, and despite all the optimism in the world, we all know that we have nothing. No scent, no trail, nothing. If I keep this under wraps, and Gile and Carline find out, they’ll take it to the council as is their right as parents. Alpha or not, I answer to the laws of this pack as much as any of you.”

  I get that. Trust me, I really do. Bear may be second and heir to the throne as things may be, but in our circle and on the force, I lead. I lead my teams; I take all the hits for fuck ups—I’ve cited Bear so many times I can’t keep count anymore—and I have to accept blowback for any decisions I make in my role as first enforcer.

  I get that responsibility and accountability is high and deadly right now, but I’ll say it again and I’ll keep saying it—even if my Alpha locks me away and throws away the key to shut me up—we can’t afford another spate of panic and pack splitting.

  With the Seers, Fords and Banes on the council, looking to cause shit for Nick all the time, another kidnapping will drive the pack into their corner, and then we’re all screwed.

  I don’t relish the thought of banishing my Alpha, and neither do I relish knowing that Bear will have to lead surrounded by idiots with no loyalty or integrity.

  “I’ve been thinking about the frequency of the attacks before they stopped, after Mika and Gretchen fucked things up for those bastards, and I’ve been considering a few things that may help us.”

  “Like what? Come on, boy, spit it out if you know something that can help,” he says and snarls.

  Bear huffs, trying to hold in a laugh when Nick partially shifts, looking like those mangy werewolves he’s so fond of ridiculing. The look is not one that most shifters go for, and the scraggly growth that covers his face, coupled with his fangs and clawed out hands, are hilarious to behold.

  The male would shit himself if he knew what he looked like.

  I keep my own amusement in, and instead think about some things I’ve been pushing around in my head.

  “We’ve been focused on our town and keeping our borders impenetrable—”

  “Yeah and look how that fucking worked out for us,” Banner says and grunts, getting a look from me to shut the hell up.

  Nick snarls again, and I roll my eyes silently, waiting for him to calm down and shift back.

  “I think we’ve been doing it all wrong. Those bastards didn’t live in the cave. That is clear enough from the way they managed to get out and scrub the place down in so little time. That means they have to have been staying in one of the other towns surrounding us and coming at us from there.”

  “That makes sense,” Bear says excitedly.

  “Or they’re further out and shift to get here fast,” Banner points out again, his penchant for logical thinking pissing me the hell off.

  I give him a filthy look to keep his trap shut and shake my head.

  “Maybe, but if I was planning a string of invasions to kidnap the daughter of the Greyriver pack, I wouldn’t risk being seen by humans or shifters with too much distance between me and the target, and I sure as fuck don’t think that these assholes can maintain their scent block if they shift. Our biology is strong, but we all know that once we shift Mother Nature takes over. Our scents cannot be masked in shifted form.”

  “That’s true,” Banner accedes, grinning when I flip him the finger. “So, they’re close by or were close by. That gives us what, an area of no more than twenty miles to cover. That leaves us with a few options, but I’d search Kalispell, Columbia Falls, Olney, Hungry Horse, Coram, Martin City, and West Glacier.”

  “That’s still a lot of search area, Logan. We can’t afford to send out seven search teams and lose males that we need on the boundaries,” Bear points out, leaning down to pick up some of the
mess.

  I join him, as does Banner, and I talk while we put the place to rights, promising Barbie that I will replace each and every little bobble head when I find her.

  “I know that, but considering where they took the females on the lake, I’d put my ass on the line they’re using Highway 93 as a route. Olney is up that way, Eureka.”

  “That’s quite a ways, Logan.”

  “Yes, Alpha, but it takes them close to many a hideaway or escape route that isn’t congested too much with humans. They have the mountains, the border up north, and besides, this is not the work of an outlying pack. These guys are unknowns and the only untreatied packs are either on the border between us and Canada, or so far south they are not worth mentioning.”

  Nick considers this and nods, straightening the couch with a flick of his wrist before laying the throw rug over it and inspecting the place.

  “I want you and Banner on this until you find something. I can’t risk this getting out if I don’t tell the Kendalls, and I can’t get other enforcers involved, so it’s just you three who know. Bear, you’re with me trying to track down that sister of yours. I hope to God you know what you’re doing, boy. My neck is on the line here.”

  I hope to fuck I do, too because if Nick’s neck is on the line, mine is on the block. Not only can I not afford to have my Alpha overthrown, not with those prejudiced assholes who sit on the council and my family being mixed, but I also can’t afford to let myself think that I may not get Barbie back.

  “I won’t get this wrong, Nick, I swear it. I will find Barbie. She isn’t the female they want, so they either took her to question her or as a trading chip. Either way, you’ll hear from them, or I’ll find those bastards nearby, just waiting.”

  “Okay. This place looks as good as it’s going to what with all the breakage. You boys get rid of the debris and get some sleep. I have a feeling this is going to be a shitstorm soon enough.”

  I get that feeling too, but fuck, it’s a whole hell of a lot better than sitting around like idiots waiting for them to play with us again.

  Chapter Two

  Hannah

  I roll over onto my side, peering at the wall of the little cell while my head tries to explode with agony and my stomach rolls in shifting waves of hung-over pain.

  I’ve been down here all night and through half of the morning, and I have no intention of getting up any time soon or demanding release, because the truth is, I want to stay here forever and never see the real world again.

  Lync snarls, the sound reverberating through the passageway that is housed with six cells, four of them empty since Jive’s parents came to bail her out last night. So—it’s just me and Lync, the feral wolf shifter, who’s been down here for years now.

  I don’t mind being here or hearing him howl for what he’s lost because most days I want to howl, too. I want to howl and scream and break everything in my path since I lost Bear to his Fated, Mika Blithe.

  I want to rip them all apart and scream that I was worthy of him and I deserved better than to have it all so close and then have my dreams yanked away from me.

  I can’t though. I can’t do a Goddamned thing about Bear breaking off our engagement to mate his female, and I can’t stop the pain that his loss has brought me.

  So now I live to forget, and pretend that I don’t care, something I am frighteningly great at since I learned the art form when I was young enough to still need diapers.

  It’s how I survive and how I manage to stay this side of the law my life is ruled by.

  Another howl splits the air, turning the ice pick in my skull into a jackhammer, the pain serving to stop the thoughts I can’t run from, no matter how hard I try.

  “Oh, shut up, you feral mutt!”

  The scream doesn’t help my head at all, but it helps to release the howl of fury I’ve been keeping inside since Bear broke things off and told me that he loved his Fated female and couldn’t marry me.

  Since that day, I haven’t been able to do anything but hate and plot and plan ways to make them all suffer, and by God, I would. I would. If I could bring myself to hurt Bear.

  I can’t though. No matter how much I hate him. Because as much as I do hate him, I still love him. He’s the only male who has ever looked at me with kindness and put up with my shit, no matter what I threw at him.

  He’s been my friend for so long that I would never, could never hurt him. And that means that, as much as I despise Mika, his mate, I can’t hurt her either.

  I want to, don’t get me wrong. I want to unsheathe my claws and slash at that golden beauty, mar her perfect face, and make her as ugly as I feel inside. I want her to bleed and cry and feel, and maybe, just maybe, see what she took form me.

  Never show weakness.

  That’s another reason I don’t react. Instead, I drink until I feel nothing, see nothing, know nothing but sweet oblivion. The last two months have been nothing but booze, shopping, and pretending—just to forget.

  How am I supposed to forget though? How?

  “Pain!”

  Lync’s raspy howl splits my head again, and I roll over with a muffled scream of fury, my impatience getting the better of me no matter how I try to ignore it. Damn fucking animal! Can’t he just be quiet, stronger, get over his shit, and move the fuck on?

  Christ, you’d think the male would have understood that his mate running off with his younger brother means she didn’t want him. Why cry for some loser who didn’t want you?

  I don’t bother to admit that I’m just as pathetic, still crying for Bear and what I lost.

  “She was a fucking whore, Lync! She left with your own brother and died with her lover. Move the hell on already!” I scream, pushing my fist against the steel door when anger overcomes me.

  He howls again, this one much louder, and I hear a shuffle before I see his scarred and hairy face peering at me through the bars on his door, the distance across the hall doing nothing to hide the feral light that shines in his navy blue eyes.

  “Pain!”

  “I know, man! I fucking know, okay. She hurt you, I get it, the whole freaking town gets it, you pathetic loser. But move on! Do you want to be here for the rest of your miserable life, being the fool who broke because some bitch didn’t want you? You should get over it and get out. Go live your life,” I say, clenching my hands around the bars when he sniffs loudly, rudely scenting me.

  Fucking savage.

  “Pain. You. Pain!” he grates again, his eyes clearing enough that I rear back and stare, entranced by the clarity in those blue orbs.

  Lync has been batshit crazy and feral for going on almost six years now, since his Fated female decided to run off with his younger brother to another pack where they assumed they’d get asylum.

  Those losers were so sure they could get away and live happily ever after, leaving the poor male to pine and search. They were so wrong, and while it may be wrong of me, I am glad they got what was coming to them.

  And no, I do not see what I had with Bear at all in the same light, because let’s be clear, I have loved that male and stood by him for years, long before Mika showed up and Fated him.

  I claimed him, was there for him, and accepted that he would never fully love me the way a Fated is loved. And I loved him anyway, maybe more because I knew that without all that emotion and lack of control to cloud his mind, what he felt for me was genuine.

  “You! Pain!” Lync snarls again, the rough quality of his voice reminding me that I may be in a pit of despair and self-hatred, but at least someone else has it worse than I do.

  His words register, and my ire goes molten, the inner bitch inside me coming to the fore.

  “Oh, fuck off, animal. I’m doing just fine.”

  “You. Pain. Smell.”

  “Lync, shut up!”

  “You pain. You pain! You pain!” He repeats, his hand closing around the bars when he gets more worked up, the shaking and snarling making me wince and clench my owns fists in fear.

/>   “Shut up. Just shut the hell up! Leave me alone, you animal!” I yell, my chest heaving with unshed tears when it becomes apparent that I’m not fooling everyone.

  “Cry!”

  “Shut up!”

  He starts whining then, so loudly I drop to my knees to cover my ears, the sound reminding me of my own inner wolf and the pain I’ve had to deal with for months.

  Pain that is my own doing and the reason that I’ve decided to escape it with booze and partying. I knew, I knew that he wouldn’t have what it takes to walk away from Mika. I knew it that first day when he came back from that coffee shop, smelling of her, his cock hard and his eyes a silver grey that swirled with repressed lust.

  I knew, and I chose to ignore it, my mind refusing to accept that it was over for us. I ignored it all, even my inner wolf warning me of what was happening, and I let myself believe that sex and his love for me would win out.

  I didn’t want to admit that he would throw me over for a little human with nothing to offer but her body and love. I wanted to trust that Bear valued my cool, calm presence in his life.

  After all, I made myself into what he needed. Shouldn’t that have been enough?

  When Lync stops whining and goes back to pacing that cell, like he does constantly, I get up from the floor and sit on the edge of the cot, smoothing the short, blue dress over my thighs, my body tense and waiting.

  For him.

  That rat bastard Logan whom I hate. I hate that male so fucking much and seeing him this often makes me want to claw his eyes out. I don’t care if he’s my Fated and that my wolf wants him.

  I don’t!

  I can’t want him. I can’t. He’s a mixed breed, a dirty mixed breed that is tainted by the mountain lion blood his filthy mother gave him, and I cannot ever be mated to a male who isn’t pure of race.

  It’s just wrong.

  I shouldn’t want to touch him. My body shouldn’t get hot and wet when he’s around, and I really shouldn’t go into heat every second month just because he’s there.